In The Presence Of Another World
by Valkyrien
Summary: JxHQ: The Joker and Harley Quinn. Could it have been any other way? Speculative, not AU or OOC. A musing on the way they are and their ultimate destinies.


_**DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING WHATSOEVER, ALTHOUGH ONCE I BREAK MISTAH J OUT OF THE FRUIT LOOP HE AND I ARE GOING AFTER THOSE CORPORATE BASTARDS AND WRESTING BACK CONTROL OVER THE STORYLINES WITH THE CUNNING USE OF FLAGS. **And possibly a great deal of explosives._

_Yesh, this is a depiction of Nolanverse Harley Quinn and Joker, because Harley is my darling and J is just... well, anyway. Ehem. Points for guessing the origin of the title._

**

* * *

**

**In another world, in another life, they would have been perfect.**

She, the vivacious, curvaceous, ambitious bundle of laughs – all blue eyes and porcelain skin; a masterpiece of creams and ivories and the palest of pale pinks with the sunset-tinted lips and the tilt of balanced hips. So alive. Blonde and beautiful, a trophy and a companion all in one. She twists and turns and leaps and falls as the angels conduct their crescendos in rythmic homage to the delicate breaths of their fallen comrade. She becomes winged and takes flight but never gets far. A wonder of smiles and giggling loveliness, she would be about the same in any place, any world, but her joy and beauty is augmented and fragmented and rebuilt into so much more when she is with him.

He, the eternal fool, bringer of smiles – a sonnet that reveals itself to be nothing but a dirty limerick once the reading is over and forces you to laugh at your own folly in being betrayed by it's deceptive, poetic, would-be beauty, but never allowing the original taste of it to fade. A contradiction of colour and surreality that brings the gold-shot curls an unlikely edge and the bottomless eyes a new level of believability that you still can't quite trust. In another world, he might be every bit as great a genius but in no way as gripping a one as he is here. He might be untouched by pain but still know fear, uncaring of both or unwilling to acknowledge them; an unscarred individual that neither seeks to strike or be struck. He might be as scarred as he is here but lack the will to transcend the limits of his form and humanity, but he is so liquid and yet at the same time so definite a being that speculation is useless at best. He might be any number of variations upon the same themes or invent a new, unprecedented theme – his own chord in the dischordant yet acknowledged scale of the world. But he would unquestionably match her in any incarnation for he is in essence her catalyst, and her strength of being is his to find and shape and to bring out in what way he deems fit.

**In this life, this reality, perfection is void.**

She is as beautiful as any version would have her, any billion choices she could have made that would have, might have, could have influenced her does not change that for that is the core of her. The mould from which she was poured was beautiful and that remains constant.

The same holds true for him. The differing versions of his past that are recalled and told, some even dreamt, others still merely lies conjured to drive home a point or aid some deeper purpose toward fulfillment, are as inconsequential as her musings on the 'what-if's of life. He is, and she is, and they are. Ending the world, Amen.

**In this other world, they would be undeniable, unstoppable.**

She is, by his side, at his word, for his delight; capable of anything., and incapable of defeat – there is no compromise or question of failure if he wishes her to be or do or say something. She will simply carry out his wishes, for in his name she is infinite and there is no line to cross for he has already removed them all and so there are no self-imposed boundaries, no restrictions. No excuses. No limits.

He is unavoidable and cannot be ignored or brushed off. He will have his way. There are no rules in his eyes that could not stand to be abolished, and so he is limitless and he does precisely as he wishes and cannot be held to account. He leaves no survivors. When he is with her, he leaves not even the foundations.

**In another world, they would be beautiful together.**

**In this reality, they are terrifying, indestructible – **_**too**_** beautiful.**

He is frightening by virtue of what he does not feel, the trammels of humanity's self-made cage are non-existent for him. Pain, fear, the need for self-preservation; all meaningless to him and all contemptible. He is above and beyond them – _part_ of them – he has ceased to be a victim and has instead become a symbol of them, as if the pain he receives by default must be siphoned off to those around him who are less worthy because they can still feel it. He creates fear in others because he does not respond or bow down to that which cripples the ordinary, the less liberated minds that are not capable of using it to their advantage as he does. He terrifies because he will not lie down and die although he _will_ take the punishment necessary for that to become a reality, only to laugh and brush it off as were it nothing at all. He stands in the road inviting the car-crash with a smile where th eothers cower by the roadside, unble to tear their eyes away from the imminent disaster until they realise all to late that he has redirected traffic right into their midst.

She frightens because she is unexpected. This angel of death is the one they plead with, unaware that they would be better served trying to convince _him_ that they deserve to live – for all the good _that_ will do them – for she feels no pity and no remorse, least of all when she causes pain for his pleasure. They call to the blue-eyed innocent by his side, her sweetness seemingly overshadowing the sinsiter edge to her smile, the delicate hand curved around the haft of the custom-made sledgehammer he placed there. They beg her to spare them, to plead their case to him, but while he is judge and jury, she knows her place. The executioner that she is prides herself on the laugh he rewards her efforts with. The accomplice that she is revels in a deed done to his satisfaction. The lover that she is delights in the spark her brutality ignites in the depths of his eyes. Although her purity may deceive the world who clings to seeing as believing, she knows so much better – and so does he. She is frightening because she feels nothing at all that he does not will. They are frightened because while he may direct the semis into their midst to enjoy the carnage, she is behind the wheel, her smile managing to fool them into false hope to the very last until they are little more than a sticky smear on the highway of life.

Perhaps, if things could have been different, they would be. But even they do not pretend to wish that things had been so. He fulfills his purpose, the self-imposed crusade against the foolishness of mankind's childish adherence to safety and law. Order. She is his most apt tool. The knife he cuts their faces to smiles with might someday fail him, but she will not. She doesn't know how. To please him is all she cares for and this in itself pleases him more than anything.

It could well be that if he'd never been scarred, they'd be the American couple, white picket fences and kid on the way, blonde hair and sweet smiles prevailed.

But when she dreams, she dreams of gunpowder, treason and plot, and the pitter-patter she hears is of paws belonging to the only Babies she'll ever desire.

It might have once been an option that a few altered circumstances would have led to their never meeting, her never having turned to him to be drawn in the way she has been.

But when he looks at her he knows that for all that Chaos rules, it could never have been any other way than this, her creation left incomplete for him to find her and perfect her. Both their lives ultimately leading towards the other with no chance of Chance making it otherwise. Some things _are_ meant to be. Inevitable.

As he loves himself; however incompletely, however strangely; so he loves her, his mirror and his shadow – and as he hates himself, he cannot bring that to reflect upon her, for her only flaw is in essence that she hasn't any really. He has polished every facet of her in the making in a way that has never been done before, and her only fault is that she does not echo _his_ faults.

The world could have been so very different, but there could in truth never have been any other choice for them. They are one and they are forever, and they already knew this long before the world gave up wishing that it could somehow have been spared.

* * *


End file.
